Postmodernism in Literature : A Comprehensive note

 

Every literary movement has initiated by some big historical events as well as a set of radical ideas which are philosophical, psychological, economical and so on. The historical event behind the literary movement postmodernism is the Second World war. Which in fact disillusioned and disintegrated the western world much more than the first world war. It was really a shocking incident for the people, they thought that what kind of a world we are living in. people lost faith completely in humanist philosophy which was dominated in the western world from the fifteenth century onwards. As a literary movement postmodernism has emerged in the mid twentieth century onwards (1940). It can be considered as the succession as well as suppression of modernism (a continuation and a rejection). Modernist writers lamented over the fragmented life caused by the first world war. In contrast to this postmodern writer celebrated the fragmented life. Modernist writers were searching for solution. While postmodern writers were problematizing the problems. Their aim is to be conscious about the problems. It re-examines every existing notions and assumptions also advocates and celebrates multiplicity, pluralism and indeterminacy.

Postmodernism is not just a philosophical trend/ movement, but refers to various developments happened in culture in general and in the realm of literature, film, architecture and art in particular.   In a general sense of the term postmodernism is to be regarded as a rejection of many and also questions the notion of certainties. According to Brian Mchale : “Modernism is characterised by an epistemological dominant (studies the nature of knowledge) while postmodernism concerned with the questions of ontology (study of the nature of being, becoming and existence).

Both modernism and postmodernism refer to philosophies of life which evolved due to economic and technological changes in the world. The origin of modernism lay in the loss of confidence in the Western world, whose claims of freedom and prosperity were proved to be hollow. The West continuously relied on Christian morals as defensive wall against dissension and conflict but religion failed to deliver. Similarly, the economic philosophy of capitalism practiced so far as a fool-proof path to prosperity created the categories of ‘haves' and 'have-nots'. Even the democratic system failed to provide the happiness that comes with liberty; instead it created inept political structures. The beginning of modernism is taken anywhere from 1890s to the aftermath of First World War.

The first use of the term Postmodernism was made in 1947 by Charles Jenks with regard to architecture. According to Cuddon (literary theorist), the term Postmodernism refers to "changes, developments and tendencies which have taken place (and are taking place) in literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy, etc. since the 1940s or 1950s". Some critics relate it to the transformation of European culture at the end of World War II. This war resulted in the use of dangerous weapons like the atom bomb and produced death camps, which represented the evil side of man in all its horrendousness and underlined the destructive potential of scientific knowledge and despotic (tyrannical) regimes.

in the realm of literary and cultural theory, the terms Postmodern' or 'Postmodernism' have been applied to the works of numerous writers such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, etc. who have also been labelled as 'poststructuralist'. Postmodernism is, in fact, a broader phenomenon; one of whose manifestations is poststructuralism.

The spirit of postmodernism, which found expression in art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, communications, fashion and other fields, was sought to be theorized by both JeanFrancois Lyotard (1924-98) and Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). Lyolard's ‘The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge’ has become something of a manifesto of postmodernism. According to Lyotard, while realism was the pre-dominant style in literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, modernism emerged in late nineteenth century and continued to rule till World War II. Lyotard's writings are characterized by a persistent opposition to universals and meta-narratives (a narrative account that experiments with the idea of storytelling) as well. He also vehemently criticized the so-called universalist claims of the Enlightenment (emphasizing reason, rationality and logic).

The other significant theoretician Baudrillard is fascinated by the term ‘Simulacra’ of postmodern life which have taken the place of real objects. In fact, the simulacrum becomes reality itself. The simulacrum is the copy that is so close to the original that the original is no longer important. Think, for example, of video or music compact discs, for which there is no original the way one might look for original paintings or statues. Virtual reality games add another dimension to the artificiality of modern life. Virtual reality presented in TV becomes the 'actual' reality for us. Thus, with the death of the 'real', the 'hyper-real takes over.

Broadly speaking, we can perhaps identify three salient features which differentiate postmodern literature from modern literature. Firstly, postmodernism-in both subject matter and style is marked by recognition of ethnic, sexual and cultural diversity. Modernist texts could address only some  sort of subject matters, whereas postmodernist works tend to give the marginalised a voice. All boundaries were removed and every side-lined topic began to discuss widely.

Postmodernist writing exhibits difference, diversity, incoherence and a world of surfaces and there is no attempt to give them a unified identity, where as in modernism, difference is still included in identity as is experimentation in tradition. For example, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which expresses a fragmented world, relies heavily on allusions which point to a unity in traditional forms of life. On the other hand, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, which is now considered a typical postmodernist output, exhibits no structure in its allusions. The action of the play defies every category of action and its location is entirely abstract and unidentifiable.

In brief, postmodernism stands for freedom from tradition and authority. No centre, definite terms, boundaries or absolute truths exist. According to Lyotard “Truth is neither absolute nor self-contained”, it’s is relative and subjective. The margins are as important as the centre.

Irreverence towards authority, indeterminacy, experiments in techniques, pastiche, magic realism, collapse of demarcation between fact and fiction, non-recognition of boundaries, belief in relativity of critical approaches are some of the other hallmarks of postmodern literature. What postmodernism challenges are old style liberalism, its high moral tone with tradition and its high attendant notions of purity and authenticity considered implicit in the conventional forms of social life. What postmodernism celebrates are differences, diversity, eccentricity, novelty and hybridism etc. Postmodernism thus reflects the energy and diversity of contemporary life as well as its frequent lack of coherence and depth.

The lack of clarity regarding the distinction between modernism and postmodernism is reflected in borderline cases like Samuel Beckett who was earlier regarded as a modernist but is now hailed as a great postmodernist. Postmodern literature is marked by a complex combination of techniques, genres and discourses. We also find a return to the pleasure principle and representationalism. As an example, we can take up John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), which combines passages from Darwin, Marx, Arnold, etc. quotations from sociological reports, frequent authorial comments as also his own transmutation as a character in the novel, which is expressed in a typical 19th century narrative form. A very significant literary piece Midnight's Children written by Salman Rushdie employs a mélange (mixture) of literary devices like magic realism, irony, symbolism, allusions and a ubiquitous word-play based on puns and surprising coinages. The protagonist Saleem Sinai is one of the 1001 children born at the stroke of midnight when India became free and all these children have magical telepathic powers. Four hundred and twenty children die later. Saleem is said to be irretrievably chained to history of India and his self is constituted by the contests and conflicts of history. His crisis of identity is seen to represent the crisis of the nation at the time of independence. The narrative is an allegory of the developments in the life of India and Pakistan. In this, Rushdie has sought to re-write history. Often such postmodern texts are found to be self-reflexive in nature.

 

So far as the scenario of criticism is concerned, we find hybridism reflected here. Roland Barthes' S/Z (1974) falls in the category of 'creative criticism of Balzac's novella ‘Sarrasine’ in the sense that he extends the boundaries of criticism also while reviewing this work. Barthes real interest lies in the numerous digressions, whimsical (strange) punctuation and capitalization and, for what was found unique in him as a critic -fictive elements. Similar is the case of Julian Barnes criticism of Flaubert's life and works. In this kind of criticism, a blend of techniques have been employed. It is not pure; it is highly inter-disciplinary.

 

The opponents of postmodernism have included notably left-wing intellectuals such as Jurgen Habermas, Frederic Jameson, and Terry Eagleton. According to Frederic Jameson, artistic movements like modernism and postmodernism are Cultural formations that accompany particular stages of capitalism and are to some extent constructed by it. Not all agree with Lyotard's formulation of postmodernism as the negation of all grand narratives.